Jennifer Pittam

This week I had an interesting dilemma in my daily writing practise. I had to shift the location of a story I was busy writing. It's to be set in 1939 and I badly wanted the action to take place in the same part of London, down in the shadow of the Tower, as one I've just finished - but that was set 100 years earlier. However, there are some parts of the world that have just changed too much. The people I wanted to write about would not have lived in dear old Griffin's Wharf in 1939. So Walthamstow it is, then. Photo by Jennifer Pittam I was charmed this week to be invited to a book launch on Zoom. Mel Wardle Woodend was the 'Staffordshire Laureate' during Covid Lockdown, and one of several touchstones for me during that awful time. I had been used to mixing with other writers in person; evening classes at the City Lit, writing groups, a talk and a glass of wine in Daunt's Bookshop.  All that ended abruptly in March 2020 of course, and when I saw an advert ...

It was a surprise, and a pleasant one, to have a short piece read out by Robert Elms on his Radio London programme. Elms is a great lover of London history and of weird facts. I'm mad on them too, and I'm a long term fan of his radio show, so I guess it was only a matter of time. My article was a tiny smidgeon of a piece about the historical significance of the name 'Whetstone'. Whetstone is a part of North London, so far out it's almost in Hertfordshire. Whetstone is, supposedly, named after the stone which the soldiers used to sharpen their swords during the Battle of Barnet, in the Wars of the Roses - it was fought on nearby Barnet Common. The stone is still there, outside the Griffin Pub. Is it true? Who knows. Is it great that we treasure that kind of tale in this great City? Oh yes!

Today I signed a contract for what my Nana would have called 'The Last Resort'. I'm getting some creative counselling. In case you're wondering what's so strange about that, we don't do counselling much in Britain, even in the year 2023. Advocaat Admittedly, we've 'given in' to various practices that would have had my afore-mentioned Nana throwing her Advocaat snowball across the bar - for example, showing lots of soggy emotion, en masse, in public. We definitely didn't do that, when she was a gal. There was a time it was considered fairly disgraceful to cry at the funeral of someone you knew, never mind at the death of a random but famous stranger. Not Even at a Friend's Funeral Nor did we walk such a delicate tightrope when it came to Health & Safety. Today in the Post Office, I was thoroughly reprimanded by a counter clerk because I'd used a staple on a jiffy bag. It could, she said, cause serious harm and then the Post Office...

It's fortunate for me that one thing so often leads to another. Whilst I was in the Highlands of Scotland for a court case anyway, I got a little commission to write about marmalade. Like Paddington Bear, I've had a lifelong attraction to the stuff, so this was one I couldn't resist. Arguments abound on the internet and elsewhere about the origin of marmalade. There's little doubt that preserves containing peel were eaten, and mentioned, as early as Shakespeare's time.  However, for me the definitive story is that, in 1700, a storm-tossed ship bearing a cargo of bitter Seville Oranges took shelter in Dundee harbour, off the coast of Scotland. The ship's master sold the now damaged cargo to a local grocer, who was down on his luck and hopeful of saving the family fortune. Once he got the organges home, how many tons is not recorded, he and his wife discovered that they were too bitter to eat (wonder what she said to him? 'Wheesht, Mr Keiller,...

It's dreadfully hot, here in London (which means, not nearly as hot as in Spain, Egypt or any other hot place you can name). Very few houses here have air conditioning, because our weather is so variable that it's simply not worth the investment. So we swelter away, moaning. British people do love to moan about the weather and the TV's awash with dire warnings about the 'dangers' of the heat. In all honesty it depends how you earn your living, if you're fortunate enough to be able to do that at all. Living on the first floor as I do, very near to the outskirts of London's ancient Epping Forest, it's a pleasure to write or edit in a cool flat with all the windows open. The raucous croaks of the rooks in the nearby trees are a great backdrop for anyone writing historical fiction. Still when I'm not cavorting with corvids or editing my work in progress, I'm finding it an absolute pleasure to get out and shop, walk or write in post-pandemic c...

 I've always rather liked Battenberg cake, a peculiarly British confection made from alternating squares in pink and yellow, the whole surrounded by yellow marzipan. Heart attack on a plate? Perhaps, but like all treats it's a jolly splendid one, in moderation.  Photo by Jennifer Pittam From my writer's notebook I see that Battenberg cake was created for a royal wedding over a century ago, when the late Duke of Edinburgh's grandmother married Prince Louis of Battenberg. Apparently the sponge featured 9 panels at that time, but was simplified to four panels in the 1930s when bakeries began mass-production. It's had a sudden resurgence in popularity of late, with stylish versions in pink and green, posh-looking slices in lemon and poppy seed and even a Blue Battenberg 'just because'. My own favourites are  the batty Halloween offerings, the more lurid the better.  What a strange nation we are. Glorious Halloween Battenberg by Sprinklebakes.com I've a vorac...

Who would have thought that a year after Lockdown we would still be in it?  Photo by Jennifer Pittam Still in Lockdown, Human? We've had some easements, true, but in essence, I am writing this from home in London, with currently 127,000 deaths in the UK. A tragedy to 127,000 families, naturally - but as with war and other tragedies, there is incidental progress in science and technology - new treatments for acute respiratory illness, the painstaking work to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, the development of every possible kind of face mask and even a much more user-friendly form of video-link software called Zoom. Photo by Shutterstock As a Clerk of the Court I used the video-link only for vulnerable witnesses before 2020, but now it's routine in courts all over the land. I also attend classes in literature and creative workshops on Zoom. This week I got out my writer's notebook read from my short story, 'I Remember Very Well' at a World Book Day event hosted by Staffor...

A writer's life, like an actor's, is full of disappointments. You have to believe you can win the competition that 7000 others didn't, or get your piece read out on BBC television against all the others who'd like to do the same. When it doesn't work out, you have to get up, dust yourself down and return to the humble and (hopefully) likeable person you were before your head swelled enough to cause you to send off your work in the first place. Today was just such a week for me, with three rejections and a storming head cold just to season the mix. The rain outside in this beautiful part of Hertfordshire resembles an Asian monsoon; the first pandemic in my lifetime still rages the planet and I am returning to my novel. This week, my hero's life changes for ever - and that's what I have to try and portray.

Photo by Jennifer Pittam Masks on Public Transport, June 2020 So early in February I spent a weekend with my father, who had recently been in hospital with a strange virus that we came to know as 'The Bug From Hell.' Like a kind of influenza, it seemed to have no runny nose or other cold symptoms, but jumped straight from high temperature, via loss of taste and sense of smell, to a barking cough and the most severe chest infection within 10 days. After a short, concerning period in hospital, he threw off the bronchitis. Feeling well but with an ominous scratchy cough, I left him and flew to Belfast for a long court case. Photo by Jennifer Pittam My Last 'Normal' Picture before Lockdown Photo by Jennifer Pittam The River Lagan, Belfast - View from my Bedroom Window How strange it seems, 12 weeks later in #Lockdown, to be working as a Clerk of the Court from my front room in London, hearing bail applications on Zoom instead of travelling all over the British Isles...

So my Creativity Course got off to a roaring start and the first thing we have to do is learn to write 'Morning Pages'.  Writing Morning Pages is a technique in which you empty the subconscious, sort of vomit it onto the page, at least once a day. Preferably you do it first thing in the morning, without thinking, judging or editing your work.  It's not a new idea - one wonders whether artists and writers have been at something similar since the first troubador hiked his wares at the castle gate. Since the first troubadour... There are various famous works one could learn from - the journals of Virginia Woolf, to name but one, and Dorothea Brande's brilliant classic 'Becoming A Writer'. Out of print now and hellishly expensive, it's still worth looking out for. DB gives those wonderful pep talks so redolent of old black and white movies. "If you fail repeatedly at this exercise, give up writing. Your resistance is actually greater than your de...

'I'd like you to write a 2,500 word autobiography,' says Eric Maisel. The wind howls outside and the rain lashes down. 'I can't,' I think. 'I won't,' my mind shouts. I can't penetrate that whirling bundle of protective noise - the one that every artist uses to hide the creative centre of the soul. Tentatively, I put down a note about my first creative experiences, with my wax crayons in the back garden at Woodford Green. I remember a picture on the wall of our little Victorian School, and my astonishment when I noticed the artist was - me. I remember a week in the Scottish Highlands, painting for dear life. I remember sadness, the years when my art seemed like a love lost forever. I remember when I caught a glimpse of it again, a brief flash in the graveyard. I stand in the graveyard. It's not so scary. People picnic here in the summer. They bring their babies, their weddings and their loved ones at the last. The rain has stopped, the wind pa...

This week I've been in Birmingham for a huge court case.  For those unfamiliar with Britain, Birmingham is a city in what we call the Midlands - quite literally, the middle part, geographically, of the British Isles. Photo by Jennifer Pittam The view from my hotel was tranquil and uplifting, unlike the court case which was gruelling and difficult to listen to. Safeguarding my own mental health, I took my writer's notebook to the Birmingham Museum of Art. Here I learned far too much about the punishing air-raids of World War II, when the city was reduced to rubble by enemy bombing. Photo by Shutterstock.com Birmingham Blitz, WWII  It was very moving to see the black and white photos of the civilian population, who continued to work and maintain the country when their homes and businesses had gone. Many were mothers, left at home whilst husbands and sons served in the armed forces. As always in war, the civilian population in  the enemy country suffered i...